And the mother of the year award goes to…

Christian fundamentalist Julia Lovemore, 41, killed daughter Faith by stuffing her mouth with paper then dousing her in white spirit and jumping up and down on her body.

She also poured wine all over her young daughter as well, before her husband finally showed up at the hospital with her dead baby in hand.

So, were there any signs that she was going to do something terrifying? You bet your sweet ass there were.

Lovemore’s aunt had reported her to authorities after becoming concerned over her ‘religious fervor’, saying she had distanced herself from her family, branding them ‘heathens’.

What can you do in a society that gives religion a free pass? The British press wants to blame the National Health Service for having failed to anticipate this woman’s actions, especially in light of the fact that she had already tried to kill her first child three years prior with a pillow.

I argue that it must have been difficult for them to properly diagnose her obvious mental illness for fear of interfering with her religious beliefs. How can one differentiate mental illness from religious piety? You can’t, really. The two have almost the exact same symptoms. I wouldn’t be surprised, in fact, if a large percentage of fundies have some sort of untreated mental illness. So long as religion continues to mask serious mental health problems, these kinds of tragedies will continue to be fairly routine.